The present disclosure generally relates to a computing system, and more particularly to data about compilers.
Instructions for a programmable processor may be stored in a form that is directly executable by the processor (“object” or “executable” form), or the instructions may be stored in a human-readable text form called “source code” that can be automatically processed by a development tool commonly known as a “compiler” to produce executable code. The compiler may be used to develop the source code and ensure that it executes properly.
A compiler translates an input program written in a programming language into an equivalent program in another language. In particular, the compiler takes a program written in a high-level programming language as input and translates the program into an equivalent program in a low-level language such as machine language or assembly language. The program written in the high-level language may be referred to as the source program, and the program converted into the low-level language may be referred to as the object (or target) program. After compilation of the source program, the target program may be loaded into memory for execution.
At a later point in time, the user may be interested in a different compiler. To migrate a computer program to the new compiler may be complicated. For example, a user may need to manually install the new compiler, compile the computer program with the new compiler, review warning and error outputs, and manually change and test the computer program to be compatible with the new compiler. This may be time consuming and tedious.